Approaching a recording which one finds immediately appealing might seem like
an open goal to non review-writing folks, but I more frequently have difficulty
putting my finger on the intangibles of a positive listening experience than
finding a way of expressing balanced criticism with problematic releases. Before
listening I was a bit concerned about the recording location. The Fazioli Concert
Hall is by all accounts a good space for recording piano music, but some of the
results I have heard display some kind of mild mid-range ‘mound’ which
can make the piano sound a little cloudy. This is not a huge problem, and on
second thoughts it may even be partly due to the instrument used. In any case,
I was delighted to hear how the Decca engineers have somehow managed to even
out any problems and bring the acoustic a little more to life with these English
Suites. This is just enough to allow Andrea Bacchetti’s favoured Fazioli
piano sound breathe a little more, and I don’t care how they did it, it
sounds very fine indeed.

The booklet notes have an informative but not overly substantial essay on the
music by Riccardo Risaliti, but there is no further information on Bacchetti’s
own ideas on the English Suites. Having another look at his Goldberg
Variations DVD/CD release, and reading of references to numerous illustrious
examples including Glenn Gould and Murray Perahia show that Bacchetti is honest
about his influences, and indicates an awareness of how his own interpretations
are positioned among those of his peers. I make an assumption in concluding that
his English Suites were also prepared with a certain amount of reference
to greats of the past and present, but as with the Goldberg Variations,
Andrea Bacchetti’s playing is individual without being wilfully eccentric,
stylish without presenting virtuosity over content and communication, and contemporary
without contempt for established and accepted performance practice.

I wouldn’t say Bacchetti treads middle ground on his own terms, but if
the comparison to exiting recordings is to be extended then there is an argument
to be had in seeing his English Suites as inhabiting that fragile territory
between Glenn Gould’s characteristic spiky attentiveness, and Murray Perahia’s
humane refinement. Bacchetti is on the whole more forceful than Perahia. Take Courante
I of the English Suite No.1 as a prime example. Perahia is playful
with those little upward passing-note ornaments, employing a swifter tempo and
flowing with more romantic dips of dynamic. Bacchetti on the other hand is more
brittle, almost harpsichord-like in taking the dynamic more in levels like a
shift between separate manuals. The ‘English’ misnomer shouldn’t
distract from the fact that these pieces are suites after the French model, and
Bacchetti’s colourful approach to ornament here and elsewhere takes this
stylistic model into consideration. More strident he may be in the first Courante,
but lightness of touch and melodic sensitivity gives his Courante II plenty
of contrast. Both players linger lovingly over the Sarabande in this suite.
Bacchetti is stricter in maintaining an inner tempo, seeing the music more in
its slow dance origins than as the rather freer and almost fantasia-like reading
from Perahia.

Another Sarabande which is a favourite for maximum expressive extraction
is that of the English Suite No.2, and no doubt one of the reasons for
its relative familiarity on disc. An extreme example of this is Ivo Pogorelich
on his 1986 DG recording, where almost 3 seconds elapse between his first note
and the second. Martha Argerich on her 1980 DG recital doesn’t go in for
such torture, but is stately and reserved, coolly showing how less can be more.
Bacchetti spreads his chords, again more of a harpsichord technique than one
commonly found with piano. This works well however, and his intensity comes with
the bigger picture, developing a magnificent atmosphere in the central development
section and modulation.

So much for comparisons: I don’t intend taking everyone on a blow-by-blow
comparative account of every piece here. I have had the privilege of reviewing
Andrea Bacchetti’s more recent Bach Two-Part Inventions and Sinfonias recording
(see review),
and my impressions of that in comparison with another recent CD
of
the
same
music,
that of Till Fellner on ECM (see review), are comparable with my overall reaction
to
these English
Suites with those of Murray Perahia. Andrea Bacchetti’s English
Suites are masculine and forthright, demanding of one’s attention as
well as being filled with sensitive subtleties. As a result this is a ‘wide
awake’ recording, and possibly not one I would choose for late night listening,
as background to a glass of wine and a good book. Take the Prelude from
the English Suite No.3. Perahia excites with forward momentum , but also
with plenty of energetic rhythm and the right kind of subtle contrast in the
gentler contrapuntal sections. By comparison, Bacchetti’s entrance is rather
imperious - a real curtain raiser. It might even be considered a little heavy-handed
if, once the material thins, the touch didn’t lighten proportionately.
I’m not always convinced by the ‘orchestral’ metaphor with
certain approaches to piano playing, but with this as one of the principal themes
of the booklet notes I am prepared to believe Bacchetti may have had “the
scoring, technique, structural topology and even sonority of the orchestral music
of [Bach’s] time” in mind with this movement. Quite how this would
equate with the harpsichord is not dealt with in the notes, but Bacchetti’s Prelude is
little short of symphonic. His melodic fluidity in the following Allemande is
as a result, once again, provided with maximum contrast, so there are gains to
be had even if you are not so keen on that previous muscularity.

I’m not saying Perahia is particularly feminine in his playing in these
pieces, but the effect with Bacchetti is often to remove another onion-skin layer
of sentimentality from the surrounding dances, leaving the Sarabande as
the soft and appealing centre to each Suite. This is of course an appalling generalisation,
and there is of course a great deal of tenderness in the Allemandes and
within other movements, and in any case he is not the only one with this approach:
Maria Joao Pires is pretty butch in parts of the English Suite No.3 on
her 2002 DG Bach recital. Bacchetti’s Sarabande movements are, in
each and every one of these English Suites, statements of poetic beauty,
at once communicative and uncomplicated, but at the same time filled with Bach’s
intangible depths; those unnamed things which keep bringing us back. What Bacchetti’s
forthright manner in some of these pieces does give us is both an ‘ancient’ and
a ‘modern’ Bach. For the former, have a look at the Courante of
the English Suite No.4, which has plenty of that French almost over-ornamental
feel and could as easily be something by Rameau. For the latter just listen to
the final Gigue of the English Suite No. 5. Here, this fugue becomes
something where as many dramatic complexities, harmonic twists and dissonant
chromatic moments as possible are brought forth with a power which would sit
comfortably among Shostakovich’s 24.

Lack of sentimentality should not be confused with an inability to communicate
emotion, and there are plenty of ‘wow’ moments where you can let
your eyes mist over. The opening of the Allemande in the English Suite
No.6 is one such, where Bach’s favourite D minor is allowed to convey
some searching sensations. Having this tenderised us, we are shaken from our
reverie with some tactile two-part writing, stamped again with an authoritative
touch by Bacchetti. I love his warm sensitivity in the Double of this
Suite, the two contrasting Gavottes are a delight, and once again the Gigue is
a magnificent tour-de-force.

Complete sets of J.S. Bach’s English Suites on the piano are not
exactly thick on the ground. For sheer quixotic excitement the 1970s recordings
by Glenn Gould still hold a very high position. With numerous films of him making
his recordings, we have a rare opportunity to see ‘behind’ the notes
far more than with almost any other pianist. He is however very much a law unto
himself, and for those who can’t bear Gould we’ve had a very fine
Hyperion set from Angela Hewitt as an alternative since 2003. There is also a
recording by Antonio
Piricone originally on ClassicO now apparently available on Scandinavian
Classics, and of course Andras Schiff on Decca. My own recent reference has as
previously mentioned been that of Murray Perahia on Sony. Where does Andrea Bacchetti
stand among these? Of this I can only give my personal opinion. Tastes will differ,
but I suspect that if you like Glenn Gould’s English Suites you
will appreciate Bacchetti’s recording as one of similar stature, but without
the singing, and fewer if any of the clipped mannerisms which can irritate in
the long term. If you are more in the Angela Hewitt or the Murray Perahia camp,
you may or indeed may not appreciate Bacchetti as a drier, more hard-hitting
alternative. You may find him too much of an enthusiastic advocate of certain
types of playing in Bach - the ‘modern piano players’ view, which
fearlessly brings out the most from the modern grand but without relinquishing
a sensitivity to proportion and refinement. Do not however lose sight of the
breadth of contrast this offers between the extrovert and dramatic, and the delicate
and introvert.

I can argue the case for Andrea Bacchetti until the cows come home, but in the
end no one recording is going to satisfy everyone, and the best I can do to sell
you this version is to at least inform you that it is different enough from the
rest to have earned a rightful place in any Bach collector’s piano section.
I’ve been playing this on and off for some weeks now, going away and coming
back, carrying it with me in my head and refreshing the memories with a thorough
airing through state-of-the-art headphones, and relishing every session.

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